Article excerpt

The hate-filled words of former detective Mark Fuhrman shocked
Americans when they were heard at the O.J. Simpson trial two weeks
ago. But they should do more than shock us. They should make us
look into ourselves and face the tenacious reality of racism in our
country.

The problem is not just Fuhrman or the Los Angeles police or
those other police forces that still manifest bigotry. It is the
vast range of obstacles that black Americans must overcome to get
an equal chance in life.

The infant death rate is twice as high for black infants as for
white infants in this country. From birth, large numbers of blacks
face the daunting odds of poor families, poor schools, joblessness,
victimization by criminals, desolate surroundings.

But it is not only the underclass that suffers. Middle-class
blacks feel the sting of a more subtle, even unknowing racism.

In too many of us there is often a buried assumption that
blacks are likely to be less able, less accomplished. Acquaintance
overcomes the presumption. But the burden is placed on blacks to
prove that they are equal to whites.

Overt discrimination has been greatly reduced in this country.
The Supreme Court, the civil rights movement and Congress ended
official segregation and the exclusion of blacks from the political
process in the South. The venom of a Fuhrman is embarrassing to
nearly everyone.

But black Americans still face the possibility of prejudice or
condescension every day of their lives. The psychic strain can only
be imagined by the rest of us.

How strange, then, is the dominant message we get from
television, movies and advertising these days on the subject of
race. In defiance of reality, we are told that race relations are
getting better and better in the United States.

That feel-good message is described and dissected in the
current Harper's magazine by Benjamin DeMott. He shows how a long
list of contemporary films, from "Pulp Fiction" to "Forrest Gump,"
portray noble relationships between blacks and whites. Advertising,
he says, routinely shows "black and white models at cordial ease
with one another. …